Market News
Down day for soybeans, corn, and wheat
Soybeans were lower on profit taking and technical selling. Contracts saw a slight correction, still watching demand and weather in South America. Most forecasts have only scattered near term rain for parts of Argentina and Brazil, with the potential for increasing pockets of dryness into the end of the month. According to Chinese grain trade company COFCO, a fatal accident at a crush facility in Argentina operated by the company caused “irreparable damage”, shutting the plant during an ongoing investigation. A wage strike by port workers in Argentina has delayed the loading of five ships. Soybeans are also watching the tail end of U.S. harvest activity. Soybean meal and oil followed beans lower.
Corn was lower on profit taking and technical selling. Corn also saw a correction, also watching demand factors along with weather in South America. The delays have also impacted planting in Argentina and Brazil, including Brazil’s critical second corn crop, which is planted after soybeans are harvested. Stateside, many key U.S. corn growing areas should be able to wrap up harvest activity soon. Ethanol futures were higher. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says ethanol production averaged 977,000 barrels a day, the highest since March, up 16,000 on the week, but down 37,000 on the year, with stocks of 20.159 million barrels, the largest since September 2019, an increase of 484,000 from the previous week, but a decrease of 1.715 million from a year ago.
The wheat complex was lower on profit taking and technical selling. The USDA is projecting record world ending stocks, only trimming their projection by a million tons from October to November, but there are continued concerns about drought in parts of Russia and the southern U.S. Plains. Weekly export sales numbers are out Friday, delayed by Veterans Day. Strategie Grains is projecting a 9% increase in soft wheat planted area in 2021 for the European Union. The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange estimates Argentina’s wheat crop at 16.7 million tons. DTN says Pakistan is tendering for 400,000 tons of wheat and Turkey bought 550,000 tons “possibly” from Russia. A draft from Moscow sets Russia’s grain export quota from February 15th to June 30th of 2021 at 15 million tons, following up on the 7 million-ton quota of April 30th to June 30th of 2020, to limit domestic price inflation.
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